CHAPTER 4: Now what?

Harper point of view:

"Who is that blonde girl in the video?" mom asks. "Where do you know her from?"

"School." I lie.

"She is identical to Savannah! That´s crazy!" Ben keeps staring at his phone. "Do you know if she´s related to her?"

"No idea." Griff shakes his head. "If she is related to Savannah, she didn´t tell us."

"What´s her last name?"

"Umm…" Griff doubts. "Don´t remember. Anyway, as you said, we should explain this to people, so no one thinks it´s Savannah."

"Yeah, that girl, Anna, seemed very excited about it. She thinks she´ll become famous. But it could ruin the hotel´s reputation."

"Don´t worry, Mr. Campbell." I break in. "Everything will work out. I have a hunch."

"We should continue cleaning the place." Topher suggests. "For it to be ready for the guests as soon as possible. Why don´t we clean the 205 today?"

Luckily, they agree. First step of our plan, done. If our parents are busy upstairs, we can sneak out to the bunker. We join them to the 205, but don´t go inside, with the excuse there´s not enough space for all of us. Sarah stays in the hallway, as well. I guess she feels uneasy going into that room, after being hunted by Judge Walker for a whole week.

My mom starts sweeping the broken lamp, while the twins and Topher take the broken pieces of the hat rack out of the room. We help them, waiting for the right moment to sneak out. Ben kneels on the floor and takes the bed apart, which has scratches all over it, just like the living room´s painting. Sarah finally enters the room and helps Ben with that.

Great. All adults are distracted. This is our chance. As silent as possible, we go down the stairs and head to the basement. The plan is to tell that girl, Anna, how important the hotel is to us. Destroying a whole family´s dream for five minutes of fame is not worth it. I hope she gets it.

"Wait!" Griff stops me when I open the basement´s door.

"What?"

"We should leave our phones here. If they realize our phones have no reception, they´ll know we are in the bunker."

"You´re right." I nod. "Good thinking."

We leave our phones over the reception's counter, and then come back to the basement. We move the boxes from the shelf, crawl through it, and open the bunker´s door. But that´s when we hear Griffin´s mom.

"What are you doing here?!"

"Mom!" Griffin startles. He doesn´t know what to answer.

Sarah raises her eyebrows, waiting for an explanation. Because of our silence, she adds,

"I guess feeling uneasy in that awful room was something good. I wouldn´t have seen you sneaking out, otherwise."

Griff and I stare at each other. We failed. What do we do now?

"I´d like to know why you always run to this place, Griff. Even after your father forbid it. It could be dangerous, don´t you get it?"

"I do…" he whispers. "I´m sorry…"

"That´s not an explanation." Sarah raises her voice. "But you know what? Never mind." She starts going up the stairs. "Come on, follow me. If you want to go there so badly, let´s tell the others to clean the bunker right now."

"What about the 205?" Griff asks, going up the stairs.

"There´s not so much to do now. We must replace the broken things."

My mom and Sarah look at every corner of the tunnel while we walk through it to the bunker. It´s the first time they come here. They are not happy about it. I can tell they are afraid, but also curious. Without touching a single thing, they pay attention to every detail; the bunk beds, the gas masks, the old board games and toys, the pile of canned food and the papers over the counter, one of which says "Fallout shelter: family health instructions."

"Ok, I don´t like this." Mom points at her surroundings. "Why would you like to come here? You may get diseases, it´s all dirty, and what if you can´t open the door and get trapped in here?"

"You´re right, Jess, this isn´t a good place for children." Sarah agrees with her. "Or anyone."

"There´s also a tunnel leading to the woods." Ben explains. "And it doesn´t look stable.

"I´ve heard enough." Mom says. "Let´s clean this up and close it forever."

We brought a cardboard box and some big nylon bags. The stuff we want to keep goes in the box, the rubbish goes in the nylon bags. Griff´s parents start throwing away the old food cans and papers, except for the "fallout shelter family instructions". Ben puts it in the box, he wants to read it later. He also keeps a small robot. Neither of us want the old board games, so they go to the nylon bags. But we lie and tell them we want some other robots, walkie-talkies, and yo-yos.

My mom and Sarah open the rusty first-aid kit box. There are some gauzes, but also expired antiseptics and antibiotics, so they decide to throw everything away.

"What will we do with this?" My mom points at the gas masks. "They belong to a museum!"

"No. Let´s throw them away." Ben shakes his head.

"Why?" Sarah frowns. "They are priceless! Gas masks from decades ago must be in a museum!"

"I don´t want evidence of the presence of this bunker." Ben says firmly. "People would like to come, specially kids, what if there´s an accident?"

"Yeah, you´re right." My mom opens another nylon bag. "It´s a shame, but, it´s for the better."

I help her with the masks, while Ben stares at the radio. Griffin and the twins watch him carefully while he takes out the toys from the box and tries to put the radio in it.

"What are you doing?" Griff asks him.

"I´d like to take the radio upstairs, but it doesn't fit in the box. You could carry the box, though, and I could take the radio."

"What do you want it for, dad?" Zoey breaks in.

"I think I can fix it! It matches the rest of the hotel."

"That´s a great idea, Ben." Sarah says.

Crap! They can´t take the radio out of here!

"We should keep going tomorrow." Wyatt places his hands over the radio, as if that would keep Ben to take it.

"What? No!" Ben objects. "It´s barely midday."

"Well, we could… we could…" Wyatt hesitates, his hands still over the radio. "…take a break. And… have lunch."

"Let´s order tacos!" Topher grabs the box full of toys and walks to the door.

"Come on, guys…" Zoey opens the door. "Let´s order tacos and set the table."

Wyatt grabs one of the nylon bags and follows them outside. All of us grab a bag as well, but Griff and I stare at Ben, just in case he takes the radio. He doesn´t. He walks to the door and says,

"You go first."

"Now what?" Zoey is sitting on one of the chairs, next to Wyatt and Topher, while Griff and I wander around the patio.

We have only a few minutes to figure out what to do. After lunch, our parents will take the radio out of the bunker.

"We´re doomed." Topher seems discouraged.

"Don´t say that, Toph!" I shout.

"And what can we do, Harper?"

"Well…" I try to think of another plan. "We could… umm…" I wander around the place until I came up with an idea. "If time travelling it´s not an option, then we should convince Anna to delete the video."

"You think that would work?" Griff asks.

"I don´t know, but we must try."

"It´s too late." Zoey says, staring at her phone. "The video already has thousands of views."

"This can´t be happening!" Griff hits the table out of anger. "We´ve been dealing with obstacles for months! First Savannah, then Grace, then Judge Walker, and now this! When will it stop?"

"Griff, calm down, we´ll figure it out." I place my hand on his shoulder, and he sweetly strokes it for a moment.

"Yeah, I hope so."

"Look at the comments." Zoey reads them out loud. "'I knew it! The Tremont is hunted!', 'Congratulations, Anna! Your video is the proof ghosts are real!', 'Oh my God! Is that Mrs. Campbell? If the owners aren´t safe in their own hotel, the guests wouldn´t have a chance!', 'That place was always dangerous, it should be demolished.'"

"We´re doomed." Topher repeats, holding his head with his hands.

"We are not doomed." Wyatt stands up. His face is filled with determination. "But the only way of solving this is time travelling. We must keep Anna away from The Tremont, so this video won´t exist."

"And how are we doing that without the radio, Wyatt?" Zoey rolls her eyes.

"We tell our parents about it. Everything." He speaks with conviction, looking at us in the eyes. "If we need to confess every time we time travelled for them to believe us, then we do it. That´s the only way they´ll let us time travel one last time to fix this."

"Do you really think they´ll believe us?" Topher asks.

"If they don´t, we show them."

We glance at each other. No one agrees, but no one complains either. Wyatt truly believes this is our best option. And he might be right.